Aftertaste
by Zayz
Summary: Cuddy muses upon her past one-night-stand with House. R&R?


**A/N**: I was just in the mood for some angsty, bittersweet Huddy and decided to do something about it – which, for me, means writing. Not my fault. –backs away slowly-

I've barely written any House before, so forgive me for this, yeah?

Cheers.  
Xx

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**Aftertaste  
****By: Zayz**

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_Aftertaste: _n. Persistence of a sensation (as of flavor or an emotion) after the stimulating agent or experience has gone.

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She had had one night with him. One. And on the odd evening when the sky is dark and the air is still and the moon quietly watches, it sometimes comes back to her and she unwillingly lets the memories flood her.

It was such a long time ago and she certainly doesn't dwell on the experience, but it does stay with her in a strange way, keeps her company when she is frustrated and exhausted and his idiotic comment of the day is haunting her subconscious.

It's never been so much what they did, but how it made her feel; not about what he had said, but how he looked when he said it; how she got a peek into _him _when he let his guard down for just a little bit, which he's careful not to let happen again.

She settles into the comfortable soft chair in her living room, the artificial light of the TV glowing softly, garbled voices coming out in low volume from the speakers, so as not to disturb baby Rachel sleeping peacefully in the next room. A laugh track for some silly, insipid program plays and she rests her head against the back of the chair, closing her eyes and letting her mind wander into these forbidden places she normally dares not trespass.

It had been a September night, warm with a significant breeze, and it had happened at his place. She had very recently hired him at Princeton Plainsboro and to this day she doesn't know how the whole thing came about. One minute she was at his door, standing there awkwardly on his mat and asking him how he was, indulging in the usual preliminaries; but he never cared for the usual preliminaries and the next minute, they were in his bed, the two of them together, clothes off and the curtains fluttering by the slightly-open window.

Despite his frequently cold, aloof demeanor, he was warm and she had clung to him, feeling the heat from his skin seeping into her own. He was rough, but she never let him get away with it; even then, at their most physically intimate, the whole ordeal was a game, a mirror-dance, an unspoken agreement in every movement, every sound, that this was nothing more than just another power-play.

That was the thing about them – there was obvious, intangible tension between them, hovering over their heads like some dark, impending doom, and it simply became too much. All of it was gone, spent, in three hard hours of sex she remembered so many years later.

She often wonders if he remembers it too, how it felt to be curled up together under his covers, sharing each short, erratic breath in the limited space. She would not put it past him to forget what little they had had in favor of the nights he spent with well-trained prostitutes, but a small, shameful, hopeful part of her wants him to remember her – how she smelled, the feel of her body under his fingers, the light from the moon making shadows across both their faces, so young back then. She knows that whether or not she wants to, she remembers it.

The clearest memory, though, had to be that of the next day, the ever-awkward Morning After. It was early, the sunshine a young, musty golden, and vaguely she felt him stiffen, rouse, taking in the scene around him. His arm had been around her waist, her person cuddled up against his; and then he moved, broke the natural, comfortable chaos of his bed irrevocably; and then he got up, with her fighting sleep to watch, and he got dressed and left her there. Alone.

Painfully, she remembers the biting twinges of confusion, frustration, loneliness, and embarrassment, all in quick succession; the distinctly sharp taste of him on her lips; the muffling, all-consuming silence enveloping her as she got dressed in a room that wasn't her own; the sinking in her stomach when she next caught his eye; the uncertainty that dictated every subsequent word she uttered in his presence.

It got easier. Of course it did. They found their footing eventually, bothering and bantering and bickering into some sort of happily ever after. Time really did heal most wounds, but this one…she doesn't think this one ever healed all the way.

She figured if it did, she wouldn't be thinking about this now.

She opens her eyes, though, finally back in the present and she looks around her living room and at a small glimpse of the life she's chosen. Another late night after work; an adopted child in the next room; a messy kitchen table filled only with papers; artwork but few photos on the wall; a solitary picture of her mother on the table beside her. The silence – stifling, empty – that cuts her despite the low garble of the television, lost somewhere in a bigger picture than this one night when she feels particularly vulnerable.

Swallowing thickly, she turns off the TV and gets up from the softness of her chair, retreating to the haven of her bedroom, where she curls up in her covers. She faces the window, the stars feeling like they're just outside her window, scrutinizing her rather than the other way around.

Tomorrow, she knows, she will be awake when it still looks something like this, dressed and out the door the moment Rachel's nanny decides to show up. She will go to work and make sure the clinic is running and attend a meeting about budgets and harass House to do his paperwork for once in his life. He will whine, she will sigh, and he will do whatever he wants but she still has to dedicate that time in her day to him, because he acts like an irresponsible fourteen-year-old boy and knows it. It will be just another day in a long, endless string of them.

But for now, as her mind loiters in a state that's not here or there, she allows her tired eyes to flutter shut; and as her brain slips into a state of unconsciousness, she can swear she tastes something distinctly sharp on the tip of her tongue before she can analyze it any further.

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**A/N**: So there you have it. The Huddy one-night-stand referenced by House in Season 3 ("Top Secret") as told by Zay.

I don't know why, but my style changes whenever I write Huddy. My syntax gets a lot longer than it should. Sorry about that. But I do hope it wasn't too shabby and that you enjoyed it. Somewhat.

Oh, and please review on your way out of the browser. Really – the review button doesn't bite, I swear, I've checked.


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